How the directors of the universe-hopping kung fu dramaEverything Everywhere All at Oncebecame unlikely Oscar front-runners.
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Eleven nominations:Its too many.
It turned its star Michelle Yeoh, a legend of Hong Kong cinema, into a major contender.
It also garnered a nomination for Jamie Lee Curtis incredibly, her first.
Kwans mother happens to be right here.
On nomination day, June was on the phone with her son.
My mom was very proud but confused by the nominations.
She was like, I know people like the film, but can you explain why people love it?
To harness her powers, Evelyn must jump between different universes and iterations of herself.
I have to think,What is this?
What is that?I cant catch up with it.
The audience is a different generation, and they perceive it very different from me.
I started to explain what our intentions were, her son says.
All eyes turn to me.
But of course its not just that.
Those who get itreallyget it.
Daniels fans dont just adore them; they feel like they know these two men.
A lot of people bring their parents, moved by the films portrait of generational conflict and reconciliation.
The directors recall one young woman who brought her mother and then just started crying, unable to talk.
Were like these five-minute therapists sometimes, Scheinert says.
The first one, Scheinert recalls, was about generational trauma.
Then came one about mental illness.
Afterward, a friend observed they could probably start a cult if they wanted to.
Scheinert and Kwanmet as students at Emerson College.
Scheinert announced, I want to make dramas that make you laugh and comedies that make you cry.
My name is Daniel!
He said he didnt know what kinds of movies he wanted to make.
Kwan and Scheinert individually made their own films for Campus Movie Fest, a nationwide collegiate short-film competition.
Scheinert was immediately taken: It was gorgeous.
One kid made this?
Not to mention a heady dose of deranged surrealism.
We got jealous of the kids, says Kwan.
The short wound up being a Staff Pick on Vimeo.
The internet approved, so we were like, I guess we should take another crack, says Kwan.
He convinced Kwan to join him.
The video was well received, and they were offered $12,000 to make the next one.
We never thought wed become these music-video directors, Scheinert says.
We were like,Oh, I guess well do another one.
Oh, I guess were a duo.
Oh, I guess were a duo that does music videos.
They would work a silly, strange idea until it led to some moment of catharsis or revelation.
It would be something stupidly absurd that makes you feel something, Seiple says.
The videos bear this out.
Turn Down for What caught fire on YouTube and currently has 1.1 billion views.
Virality helped the Daniels make a name for themselves.
And the influence goes both ways.
So much of our inspiration is outside the language of cinema.
They started building a collective of collaborators they work with on all of their projects.
Seiple came onboard after seeing the FM Belfast video.
Their production designer, Jason Kisvarday, joined soon after.
The Daniels are happy to be in this creative petri dish they created, observes Jamie Lee Curtis.
They recognize how collaborative the art form is.
Its unlike anything Ive ever been a part of.
ForEEAAO,the directors sat some of their friends and collaborators down and pitched the whole movie.
The idea wasnt just to sell them on the idea but to see what was and wasnt working.
By the time they were done, their editor, Paul Rogers, was on the verge of tears.
I thought it would piss more people off, Scheinert recalls.
Eventually, it did:EEAAOwound up being review-bombed on IMDb after the Oscar nominations were announced.
(Overhyped and overrated were common descriptions.)
But the pair are honestly surprised it didnt annoy more people.
Scheinert has a theory about why: Once an audience loves a character, theyll go through so much.
And its not just the character.
The raccoon itself is a phony bundle of matted fur and jaunty limbs.
Scheinert and Kwan told their props department to make it look like someone went and got a bad taxidermy.
This handmade quality is one of the Daniels primary charms.
It tempers their philosophical ambitions and keeps their films from feeling self-important.
To come back to the limitations of physical filmmaking can be refreshing, Kwan says.
Im very proud of the fact that theres a jankiness to it.
I think thats what people are responding to.
June remembersthe days when her son was miserable at UConn.
She was the one who urged him to go to film school.
You cant do anything, she recalls telling him.
The only thing you might do is try film.
My mom was just being real, Kwan tells me.
She could tell I cant do anything.
A lot of it, it turns out, was undiagnosed ADHD.
Just no result, like a dummy, June says.
Its executive dysfunction, Mom, Kwan replies.
People with ADHD have trouble with motivation because we dont have normal dopamine activation.
Upset, Scheinert walked out of the edit room.
Another way of putting it is my ego starts getting hurt.
Researching the character, Kwan realized he shared the condition.
It was like,Oh, now we have a word for it, Scheinert says.
Many people with ADHD can hyperfixate when they find something theyre interested in.
To be able to sit down and work on one thing until its incredible?
I would say thats Dans superpower.
Curtis describes Scheinert on set as the actor whisperer, while Kwan is more the technical, visual person.
(This is, they tell me, howSwiss Army Manstarted.
Kwan threw out a silly thought about riding a farting corpse, and Scheinert wouldnt drop it.)
Scheinert likes to keep things moving.
He recalls running around theEEAAOset repeatedly reassuring his cast and crew that they werent making an Oscar movie.
We genuinely told people this movie was quantity over quality, he explains.
This isnt that kind of movie.
If you get us a sofa, well roll with it, man.
Im still the kid in the back of the class, Kwan says.
This Oscars stuff is horrifying to me.
As storytellers, so much of our job is to make the illegible legible, Kwan says.
Thats why we tried to makeEEAAO,because we were so overwhelmed.
That tension might not be such a bad thing.
We bring a naivete to everything we do, Kwan says.
We dont know better, and thats why we do it.
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